Long and Short Vowels

What you will learn

You can name the nine Swedish vowels, see from the spelling whether a vowel is usually long or short, and sort the vowels into hard and soft.

Nine vowels

Swedish has nine vowels, a, e, i, o, u, y, å, ä and ö. All the other letters are consonants.

Long or short

In the part of a word that you say most strongly, the vowel is either long or short. A long vowel is held longer, and it often sounds a little different from the short one. The length can change the meaning. Tack (thanks) has a short a, and tak (roof) has a long one.

The spelling usually tells you which it is.

One consonant after the vowel, or none, usually means a long vowel, as in talar, lite, tre and sju. Two consonants usually mean a short vowel, as in tack, inte, tretton and sjutton. The two can be the same letter written twice, as in tretton, or two different letters, as in inte. Ck counts as a double k.

A few short, common words break the rule. They have a short vowel before one m or n, such as han, hon, men, fem and rum.

Hard and soft vowels

Swedish also sorts the vowels into hard and soft. This matters for the consonant before the vowel. K and g keep their usual sound before a hard vowel, as in kod, kurs and god kväll. Before a soft vowel they often change, mostly at the start of a word. In Gävle, the g comes before ä and sounds like the j in ja, which is close to the y in yes. The letter name ge starts with the same sound. A later chapter shows how this works for k, g and sk.

Listening comes later

This lesson has no practice questions yet. Audio for the vowels is planned, and listening practice will follow when checked recordings exist.

Common mistakes